


Q is for Quiet

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 16:19:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2354777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bethany knew she hadn't hallucinated seeing her father with that other woman, but he'd stuck her in Radley to keep her quiet. Now she knows the truth, and someone's going to pay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Q is for Quiet

At first, Bethany had thought that Jessica DiLaurentis took a personal interest in all the patients at Radley. It had been Big Rhonda who had said that wasn’t true, that Jessica barely said two words to anyone else. “She never signs me out, takes me anywhere.” Bethany had initially brushed that off, but over time, she started to notice that Rhonda was right. 

“So what is it about you, anyway?” Rhonda eventually asked. “Why is the rich lady taking such an interest in you?” Bethany hadn’t known herself, but had decided to ask her the next time Jessica took her to see Custard. Jessica had come out with the same old line about taking an interest in everyone, but when Bethany had challenged her with “What’s my roommate’s name?” Jessica had stammered “Rosa?” 

“It’s Rhonda,” Bethany had snapped. “So why are you really interested in me?”

Jessica had eventually stammered out some bullshit about how there was something about Bethany reminding her of herself when she was her age. Bethany didn’t even know why she’d fallen for that. There was a line practically the same in The Devil Wears fucking Prada. But at the time, she’d wanted to believe it. Jessica DiLaurentis was successful, sophisticated, attractive, intelligent, and she thought she saw similar qualities in Bethany. Maybe Bethany had a future after all, one that didn’t involve shock therapy and listening to Big Rhonda snoring and farting in the next bed. Jessica seemed to think so, anyway. She talked to her as though Bethany were an adult, told her all about her children, Jason and Alison. She took an interest in what Bethany might do with her life after she was released from Radley. Maybe there was more to Bethany than the waste of space that her family had always seen her as – even more so since she’d found out about her father and that woman.

Bethany hadn’t seen the woman’s face at the time. All she’d seen was her father embracing some blonde woman in a red jacket, holding a beige purse. She’d confronted her father at the time, but he’d just gotten angry at her, yelled that there was no woman, said it was just another one of her hallucinations and she should just stop shooting her goddamn mouth off before she made any more trouble. He’d obviously got to her mother as well with that story, because when Bethany tried to tell her what she’d seen, her mother hadn’t believed her either. Her mother had kept repeating that Bethany needed help, that maybe it was about time she went somewhere she could get some proper treatment. But Bethany knew that her mind had been the clearest it had been in a long time when she saw what she saw.

Her parents checked her into Radley a few days later. Bethany had tried to plead with her father not to leave her there, to tell the truth about what had happened, not to shut her away to keep her quiet. But her father had just said “It’s for the best, Bethany,” before turning and walking away. And in that instant, Bethany knew that she hated that woman, and if she ever got the chance to pay her back, she would.

Dr. Kingston had tried to suggest that the person Bethany was really angry at was her father, and that she was focusing on the woman because she had never known, or cared about her, and it was just easier to blame the woman rather than having to face up to the fact that her father had let her down. When he’d said it, Bethany had dismissed it as psychobabble. What did he know about anything anyway?

Fuck all, it turned out, since by the time Bethany found out who her father’s other woman was, she had come to know and care about her after all.

It had been completely by chance that Bethany had realised. Jessica had come to take her to the stables, and Bethany had been late meeting her. Rhonda had gotten worked up about something or other, and Bethany had tried to help calm her down before going to meet Jessica. When she came down the stairs and walked into the lobby, Jessica stood with her back to her, talking to some guy in a suit. As Bethany watched, she saw Jessica from the back, wearing that same red jacket and carrying the beige purse, hugging the man as she said goodbye, in almost the same pose as she had once seen the other woman with her father. And she knew.

Bethany had expected her to try and lie her way out of it, just as her father had done. But instead, Jessica admitted everything, that she’d felt guilty about the circumstances that had led to Bethany ending up in Radley and she wanted to try and make her time in there better. She said that she hoped she could still be a part on Bethany’s life, and that she wanted Bethany to call her Aunt Jessie. A red mist had descended in front of Bethany’s eyes as she had picked up a nearby bucket and thrown it at the woman she blamed for her incarceration.

“Never visit me again”, Bethany had snarled as she had turned and walked away.

It wasn’t long after that that Bethany received a letter, signed Alison DiLaurentis. In it, Alison wrote about how she wanted to get to know this person that her mother had talked so much about, that she had been pretty shocked to find out about the affair too and maybe the two of them could help each other. Bethany’s first impulse was to rip the letter up. This Alison was probably just as big a liar as her mother. In fact, from some of the things Jessica had mentioned, she might have been even more so. Bethany had learned never to trust a DiLaurentis. But as she read the letter again, she wondered if maybe there was another way.  
It wasn’t difficult to sneak out of Radley. The place really shouldn’t call itself a secure facility. Bethany was free, she knew exactly where she was going and what she was going to do.

When Bethany arrived at the DiLaurentis house, someone who had to be Alison stood there, screaming at her, wanting to know what Bethany’s game was, wearing the same clothes as her, pushing her way into the family’s life when she wasn’t even family, something about someone called A which made no sense to Bethany (and Bethany was supposed to be the crazy one?) and who did she think she was calling Alison’s mother Aunt Jessie anyway? Bethany almost wanted to laugh. Here was this little drama queen, jealous of the interest her mother took in Bethany, while Bethany just wanted that whole family out of her life. But she didn’t tell Alison that. 

Bethany picked up a rock and struck Alison on the back of her head. As Alison’s shrieks were quietened, as Jessica screamed “What have you done?”, a smile spread over Bethany’s face.

Jessica had taken Bethany’s family, her whole life, away from her. Now Bethany had taken something from Jessica. She had done what she came here to do.


End file.
